The Haunted School
by Caiwen Nallron
Summary: The girls in Masaki's and Kichijouji's class play with a Ouija board on school property, accidentally summoning a host of spirits. Masaki and Kichijouji must now battle ghosts. Note: Story uses real Japanese ghost stories. MxK
1. Kuchisake-onna

**Pairings:** MasakixKichijouji

 **Disclaimer:** "The Irregular at Magic High School" is the property of Satou Tsutomu. The fanfic author is not making any money from this story.

 **Author's Note:** Masaki calls Kichijouji "Jouji" in both the anime soundtrack and the original light novel, so I'll have Masaki do the same here.

The spirits and ghosts in this story are all based on actual Japanese ghost stories and urban legends. Some creative license has been taken, though, so that those familiar with the ghost stories won't find this fanfic too predictable. Also, the portrayal of the Ouija board is in the Japanese style; they draw it on a piece of paper and then destroy the paper when they're finished.

* * *

 **Chapter One**

Before class started, three girls gathered around another girl's desk, whispering and giggling. The seated girl had her tablet out. Kichijouji glanced over and saw the girl with the tablet using a program to handwrite with a stylus. Only, instead of class notes, she was writing down hiragana, katakana, and a few basic kanji. Giggling erupted.

Kichijouji knew what they were up to as soon as one of the girls standing around ran over to the window and opened it.

As she scampered back, her friends chanted, "Kokkuri-san, Kokkuri-san, if you're here, please move this pen."

Masaki had been busy going over his school notes from yesterday. He only looked up at the mention of Kokkuri. He shot Kichijouji a dismayed glance. _Oh, no. What am I supposed to do?_ The game was banned from being played on the high school grounds and on the grounds of any high school. But there was no real magic in it, no such spirit as Kokkuri, and Masaki hated being asked to use his position on the Disciplinary Committee to spoil people's fun. He didn't want to crack down on every little rule.

Kichijouji understood Masaki's dilemma. He stood and walked over to the girls. "You know you're not supposed to play with a Ouija board at school," he murmured. "I don't believe there's anything to it, of course. But you're putting Masaki in a bad position. If the teacher comes in and finds you all doing this, and Masaki hasn't stopped you, he'll get in trouble, too."

"Ah, fine," the girl who'd opened the window said. Her name was Nanabou Rie. She had straight hair she bleached and dyed red, and she always wore her hair back in a ponytail. Every other week some teacher scolded her for wearing too much eyeliner.

"But we didn't get to ask any questions," one of the other girls standing around protested. She had short, wavy brown hair cut in a chin length bob, and she was shorter than Rie. Her name was Kyugawa Tsumiko.

The girl sitting down closed her tablet with a sigh. "I told you guys not to chant so loud." A blonde half-Japanese girl with an American father and a Japanese mother, Miller Asami was a minor troublemaker with a strong personality. She was the usual ringleader when groups of girls were doing things they weren't supposed to.

The last girl shifted her weight from foot to foot and wrung her hands, looking guilty. She had thick, straight black hair, and was usually quiet in class, never responding to any of the teacher's questions. Her name was Hachiyama Utau.

Kichijouji's lips quirked. "Well, if you want to do it, at least go to the roof and do it during lunchtime. Then you can be alone, and Masaki won't be right there in the room with you." He honestly thought the Ouija board game was silly. Did anyone really think they could summon a spirit that way? But at the same time, he thought it was equally silly to ban it at school. The claim that people would die if the players didn't finish the game "properly"—by saying goodbye to the spirit—was just old folklore from the twentieth century. Kichijouji didn't see why anyone in the 2090's should believe such a thing.

Rie walked over and shut the window again. "Fine."

The girls made it back to their desks just before the teacher showed up.

Masaki shook his head. _Can't they wait for summer break to tell themselves spooky stories, just like everyone else?_

* * *

When they came back from lunch, it was time for history class. Miller sat down and opened her tablet case, folding it back and preparing to take notes. She frowned.

From where he sat, Masaki could see that the screen was black.

Miller pressed the button on the top of her tablet. Nothing happened. She scowled and pressed it again. "Damn it, stupid thing's gone dead. I just charged it this morning." She tossed it in her book bag and lifted the screen of the computer built into her desk, which their teachers preferred them to use, anyway.

Kichijouji glanced at Miller. _You probably spent all of lunch playing with your handmade Ouija board and draining your battery._ He wasn't about to say that, though. Still, he frowned. _And your battery must be going bad._ The average tablet battery, even on the generic brands that were a few years old, now lasted twelve hours minimum. Kichijouji mentally struggled to himself and reflected with some sadness that he missed the days when he and his friends would innocently tell ghost stories and halfway believe them. No summer day at the beach was complete without a sleepover that night filled with horror stories. But after the Sado Island invasion, Kichijouji hadn't wanted to hear any more ghost stories. His parents were dead for real, and he'd seen real horror. The fictional kind wasn't fun any longer.

Masaki was uneasy for a much more immediate reason. Swearing wasn't allowed on school grounds, either. _As long as she doesn't keep cussing out her tablet, it'll be fine,_ he told himself. Miller had only come to their school at the beginning of this year. She was unfortunately as intelligent as she was wild, and being in class with her frayed Masaki's nerves.

Halfway through their history lesson, on the 2011 Fukushima Power Plant Disaster, a musical blipping noise interrupted the teacher's lecture on primitive nuclear power.

Miller turned bright red for once. She grabbed her tablet out of her book bag. "I was trying to turn it on, Gochizo-sensei. It wasn't working. I swear. I just meant to take notes on it."

Their teacher frowned, but he didn't rebuke her.

Miller hastily opened her composition program and rapidly typed out notes on the touchpad keys.

Kichijouji glanced Miller's way and frowned again. _What? Did you get water on it or something?_ Mild water infiltration was the only thing he could think of that could cause the tablet's odd behavior. If it wasn't too much water, the damage wouldn't be permanent, and the device would resume working properly once the water had dried. _Maybe she spilled water or juice during lunch._

Five minutes later, Miller let out a flustered growl and tapped on her screen. The drawing program had come up again, and a traditional red gate cartoon, like those at the Shinto shrines, took up the entire screen. She swiped the program off her screen and resumed typing notes. This time, their teacher pretended not to notice her behavior.

However, when Miller cried out, the teacher paused with a twitch of his left eyebrow. Miller desperately fought with a sudden onslaught of pop-ups.

Masaki stared. Each of the little windows seemed to contain Miller's own handwriting. Each pop-up had a different message in it. He caught: Hi; Hello; Hey, listen; Good afternoon; Excuse me; and finally, Wow.

"Stop it!" Miller yelled at her tablet.

For a split second, the screen turned solid red. Then it returned to her composition program, with all of her notes intact. She breathed a sigh of relief and slumped back in her seat. "Sorry, sensei. I don't know what's wrong with this thing. It's like I spilled juice on it or something."

Masaki saw it first. He pointed. "Miller-san . . ."

Without Miller touching the virtual keyboard, words appeared at the bottom of her document in a constant stream, forcing the tablet to automatically scroll down. The same word, over and over: _Kokkuri-san_.

The font suddenly grew larger and larger, until the name took up the whole screen.

Miller screeched and jerked backwards, toppling over her chair and crashing to the floor. Her hand accidentally knocked her tablet off her desk. It fell to the floor beside her, one corner first, and slammed face down.

Everyone heard the sickeningly crisp _crack_.

Ashen, Miller turned over her tablet. The glass pane of the screen was split diagonally across, and the device was dark.

Kichijouji watched the entire escapade unfold, shocked into stillness. _A virus? Or a trojan?_ He felt his brow furrow. _Did you go to one of those séance websites or do a chat with an online medium? Those websites are notorious for viruses._ He really wanted to ask, but he wasn't about to do that in front of the class. He didn't know Miller personally, and he might get in trouble for speaking out of turn. Still, he held out his hand. "If you want, I'll work on your tablet for you. Depending on what did or didn't get damaged, it can be saved. You'll just have to deal with the cracked screen."

Miller actually sniffled. She righted her chair and herself and handed the tablet to Kichijouji. "Thank you, Kichijouji-san."

"Yes, that's very nice of you, Kichijouji-san," Gochizo said.

Miller was uncharacteristically silent for the rest of the school day. After school, she waited for Kichijouji and Masaki to emerge from the classroom. Masaki was the last to leave because of a Disciplinary Committee meeting.

She leaned against the wall with her hands clasped behind her back. "Thanks for volunteering to work on my tablet, Kichijouji-san. If you want you can come over to my house. My mom will make us rice balls. She makes them for all my friends and my study group."

Kichijouji glanced at his watch. He had an hour and half before going to work. He paid his own tuition, room, and board through the job Ichijou Gouki had secured for him at the Kanazawa Magic Research Institute. "Sure. I've got just enough time if you don't live too far away." He gave her a smile. "And rice balls would be nice." Since he lived in Third High's dorm, he had to eat cafeteria food three times a day. The cooks were decent, but the food could get repetitive. Kichijouji welcomed even the smallest changes, and he especially enjoyed eating supper at Masaki's house.

Miller looked to Masaki. "You're invited, too, Ichijou-san."

Masaki smiled. "Thanks. Sure." He couldn't be impolite, and the possibility of her tablet being broken had shaken Miller out of her usual obnoxious attitude. Plus Kichijouji was going.

Miller smiled at them both. "I live fifteen minutes away. It's really close. I walk to school every day."

Together they walked to Miller's house, which was a typical middle-class home. Her mother, who looked very Japanese and nothing like Miller, greeted them kindly and asked them what kind of rice balls they liked.

Miller brought them to the room set aside as the family's study, and not long after they settled around the kotatsu table together, Mrs. Miller brought in snacks and cans of green tea. "Study well," she said cheerfully, and left them to it.

"Let's see." Kichijouji pulled out Miller's tablet and retrieved a small toolkit from his school bag. He always had the kit on him since he always had his laptop, and it contained a miniature screw driver, a small magnifying glass, screen cleaner, and a cloth wipe. He undid the screws holding Miller's tablet together and popped the back off. He used the magnifying glass to study the processor and mother board. "There's no scorching, and nothing looks fried or broken." He popped out the tiny battery. "Let's completely stop the current for at least two minutes." He ate a rice ball while they waited, then popped the battery back in and reattached the back. "Have you ever visited one of those séance websites?"

"Yeah," Miller admitted, eating a rice ball with cucumber in the center. "I totally have. I think they're cool. I know what you're going to say, but I installed special anti-malware programs. They should've worked."

Masaki ate a rice ball with a little dried squid in it. "People come up with new ways to infect devices all the time."

"Yeah, I know." Miller bowed her head. "But it's so boring around here, and everyone is so serious. I mean, Kokkuri-san." She snorted. "He's not real. I just wanted to see what he would say."

"Or rather what your friends might say while holding the stylus?" Kichijouji asked. He picked up a second rice ball, this one with a piece of plum in it. "Fair enough. But it seems more like a game for a summer night after ghost stories, not the middle of May and at school—and with the sun shining." He hit the power button and hoped the tablet would boot up.

The screen blinked on, and Kichijouji was asked if he wanted to start the system in repair mode. He tapped the "yes" box and waited.

Miller shook her head. "My mom says you don't have to play Kokkuri-san during the summer or at Halloween. She's where I got the idea from. After we moved back here, she started telling me all kinds of stories about what she and her friends used to do. They played Kokkuri-san. There wasn't a ban on playing it at school then. Why should there be now? They played it, and nothing bad happened to them. It's just a kid's game, like you said."

She looked exasperated. "When I told my mom I was going to get the girls at school to play it with me, she tried to convince me Kokkuri-san really does know the answers to everything, and he predicted she would meet my dad and move away." Miller shook her head. "She's always doing stuff like that."

Kichijouji considered the claim. "Some people just need more belief in the supernatural than others. I don't believe in any supernatural powers—ghosts, gods, or youki. But other people couldn't handle life without their religion or whatever deities they believe in." He took a drink of his tea and then fell silent as he went through all the options on the safe mode screen, making sure nothing was severely amiss.

"Kyugawa-san didn't come back to class after lunch," Masaki said. "Is that because something upset her?"

Miller frowned. "She's a big baby. It was just a joke, and she took it all seriously. She went to the nurse and said she was sick and had to go home."

"What was a joke?" Masaki asked. He was reminded of why he didn't like her.

Miller shrugged and looked away. "They were all asking silly questions, like 'Does my boyfriend love me,' and 'Will I get an _A_ on this paper?' I remembered my mom said Kokkuri-san can predict when you're going to die, so I asked it when Kyugawa-chan was going to die. It said tonight." She snorted with laughter.

A chill passed through Kichijouji, and he assumed it was his PTSD from the Sado Island invasion trying to rear its ugly head. Ending up in a war zone and with dead parents had left him with bigger wounds than most of his classmates had. "I don't think I'd ask that even as a joke." He glanced at Miller. "I had to attend a mass funeral for my family and friends after the Sado Island invasion. When the real thing is in your face . . ." He trailed off. _Why am I trying to explain this to her? She probably won't understand._ He turned back to the tablet and told it to restart in normal mode. "Looks like your tablet might be okay, other than the cracked screen. We'll find out."

Miller looked uncomfortable. "Hey. I didn't mean to be cruel. I just didn't think she would take it seriously."

"Well, you can't control whether Kyugawa-san takes the Ouija board seriously or not, or how seriously she takes it." Kichijouji relaxed as Miller's tablet finished restarting normally. "But you can reassure her tomorrow that you only meant it as a joke, and if she's still upset, you can consider apologizing to her anyway. It won't hurt you any, and it might make her feel better." Kichijouji rattled off the advice without much thought. He was the RA for the third floor at his dorm, and he had been as a first-year and second-year student, too. By this point, he was used to settling arguments, negotiating truces, and handing out advice. He had twenty boys under his care.

"Oh." Miller wrapped a strand of her blonde hair around one finger restlessly. "I guess I could. Yeah. I didn't mean to freak her out." She sighed. "It's just . . . I mean, my dad is like you. He doesn't believe in any of this stuff. He's a scientist, and he's not impressed by folktales."

Kichijouji handed Miller her tablet. "Makes sense. You side more with your dad, right? So you just don't think much about people taking supernatural things seriously. You forgot to factor in that one of your friends would be more like your mom." He checked his watch and stood. "Okay. I should probably head out. I have to work tonight."

Miller stood, surprised. "I'll walk you out. Thanks for coming over. I know we're not friends or anything, so you went out of your way for me just because you're nice."

"You're welcome," Kichijouji said, and they traded bows.

Masaki stood as well. "Thank you for having us. If you like, you can come over to my house sometime." He liked her better again after she took Kichijouji's advice.

"I'll be there, too, to help create the study group," Kichijouji said, worried that Miller might misunderstand the offer. Half the girls at the school had a crush on Masaki, but thanks to the time Miller had spent in the USNA, Kichijouji had never been able to read her well enough to determine if she had a crush on Masaki or not. American girls and Japanese girls underwent very different upbringings.

Miller grinned. "Afraid I'm going to jump your boyfriend?"

"That's not what 'boyfriend' means," Masaki complained as they followed her out. "Just say the word 'friend.' You just said Jouji and I were dating."

Miller snickered. "That wouldn't be so bad, either, but okay."

Kichijouji was too busy sweating to correct their weird miscommunication. He wasn't sure if his confusion about their exchange came from their misunderstanding of each other or was a result of his being unable to fully understand them due to a spike of fear. In truth, Kichijouji was in love with Masaki and would give anything to date him. But no one knew that except Kichijouji himself.

In the end, Kichijouji said nothing, although he wondered if Miller's acceptance of boy love was the result of a shonen ai obsession or the result of the USNA's more relaxed stance toward the LGBTQIA community.

* * *

When Kichijouji and Masaki got to class the next day, it was in an uproar. Most of the girls were crying, and the boys either looked ill or uncomfortable. Miller was at the center of the chaos. _As usual,_ Masaki thought sourly.

"I didn't mean it!" Miller yelled above the wailing. "It was just a joke!"

Masaki's gaze fell to Kyugama's desk automatically. It was empty. Not even her bag or her textbooks.

Kichijouji followed Masaki's line of sight and saw the empty desk. A chill washed through him, settling in his stomach. He threaded his way through the kids surrounding Miller and stopped in front of her. "What happened? What's going on?"

"I didn't do it! I had nothing to do with it! I called her on the phone and told her I was sorry, and she said it was okay, and she was going to bed," Miller blurted out.

"I hate you!" Rie screamed, sobbing into her hands. She was Kyugawa-san's best friend. "It's your fault she did it. If you knew her like I did you would have known she was lying! She wasn't okay!"

Miller turned white. Then her thunderstruck expression changed to agonized rage. "Fuck you guys!" she shouted in English. Then she ran out of the room, crying.

Rie uncovered her face and stared at Kichijouji, pointing at the doorway to the classroom. "She killed Kyugawa-chan! It's her fault Kyugawa-chan's gone!" Then she collapsed to her knees on the floor and cried until she made herself hiccup.

Kichijouji looked after Miller, then back at Rie. "Miller-san clearly didn't literally, physically kill Kyugawa-san." He stopped, Masaki's voice in his head admonishing him. He didn't even have to glance Masaki's way to know he was coming on too logically. "I mean—I'm sorry your friend is dead." He couldn't believe he was saying those words. It seemed unbelievable that Kyugawa was dead when there hadn't been a terrorist attack or an invasion. "But I still don't understand how she died. Can someone explain?" He looked at the other kids around Rie.

The last girl who had been pulled into Miller's decision to play Kokkuri-san spoke quietly, her head bowed. "Kyugawa-chan killed herself with a pair of scissors." Everyone seemed shocked that the ordinarily silent Hachiyama Utau had spoken up. Her thick, black hair was a curtain over her face.

Masaki started forward. The other students parted to let Masaki through. He stared at Utau. "Scissors? How? Why?"

Utau didn't move. She just kept staring at her feet. "She went insane. She said the Kuchisake-onna did it."

Masaki exchanged a glance with Kichijouji. "The Slit-Mouth Woman? But that's just a ghost story out of a slasher movie."

Kichijouji was sloshing around on a sea of illogic at this point. "How could Kyugawa-san lose her mind in just one day? Especially without a sufficiently triggering event? Playing with an Ouija board is not sufficient enough to cause a psychotic break." He paused, remembering that none of the other students had probably done as much psychological research as he had. Then he backed up. "Hachiyama-san, had Kyugawa-san ever said anything suicidal before? Was she depressed?"

Utau trembled. "She said . . . she said over the phone Kuchisake-onna was in the room with her . . ." Then she passed out in a dead faint.

Masaki, startled, reflexively caught her before she fell. "Hachiyama-san is probably just exhausted," he said feebly. He knew this wouldn't do a thing for his reputation as the shining knight of Third High. "Let's take her to the nurse." Not really feeling he had a choice in the matter, he picked Utau-san up in a front carry. He just knew people would be talking for weeks about it.

"Okay." Kichijouji followed Masaki out. Not all the doors in the school were automatic, so he'd need to clear Masaki's way for him. He walked beside Masaki down the hallway. "Kuchisake-onna? Really?" His mind played back footage from the old horror film: a woman wearing a white allergy mask. The woman looked utterly normal until she pulled off the mask, revealing an overly-large mouth full of blades. "I didn't detect any signs that Kyugawa-san was delusional or having hallucinations. Then again, I didn't know her very well, so I suppose she could have been coming down with the slow-onset type of schizophrenia." He sighed, his stomach clenching. "In the end, I know it doesn't make a difference. She was here yesterday, and today she's gone. She was in pain, or she wouldn't have been suicidal. And somehow, no one noticed."

Masaki understood why that depressed Kichijouji so much. "I'm not going to let that happen to you. I'd notice."

Kichijouji glanced at Masaki. "I know. I trust you." He just wished Kyugawa had had a friend as good as Masaki was. "It's still sad she committed suicide." Kichijouji didn't uphold the same stigma about suicide that many others did. He felt genuinely bad for Kyugawa.

Kichijouji opened the three doors in Masaki's way—all of them fire doors. Then he opened the door to the nurse's office.

Masaki deposited Hachiyama on a bed as the nurse stood and fluttered about the room.

Kichijouji adored the school nurse, mainly because the man was the only clearly gay person Kichijouji had ever met. All the students suspected Tadashi Juro was gay, but no one ever said anything to the man's face. He was being left alone to tend to ill and ailing students, a fact that gave Kichijouji some mild comfort.

"Oh, no." Tadashi hovered by Hachiyama's bedside and put a thermometer strip on her forehead. It beeped after only a second. "No fever. What happened?"

Masaki stood by Kichijouji. "We think it's just sleep loss. Did you hear about Kyugawa-san? Last night . . ."

"I heard," Tadashi said grimly. He pulled a small scanner from the pocket of his white coat and scanned Hachiyama's ID bracelet. He glanced at the information. "So Hachiyama-san is a friend of Kyugawa-san?"

"Yes," Kichijouji said. He well knew that not all gay men were "queens," but some were, and Tadashi was closer to that style. Kichijouji even detected a touch of eyeliner and mascara on the man, although there were no other signs of makeup, especially colored makeup. "Before Hachiyama-san fainted, she said that Kyugawa-san claimed that the ghost Kuchisake-onna was in the room with her. Apparently the two girls were on the phone. Later, Kyugawa-san committed suicide with a pair of scissors."

Tadashi threw one had over his heart. "Gods! That's terrible." He paused and frowned. "I know how logical you are, Kichijouji-san. You're probably thinking Kyugawa-san had a mental disorder, assuming that Hachiyama-san's story is true."

"You're right," Kichijouji said.

Tadashi glanced out the window. "My grandmother is a Shinto priestess. I grew up hearing stories about spirits." His brow furrowed, and he seemed to be staring at the tree just outside. "Not all of those stories are fiction."

Kichijouji just raised an eyebrow.

Masaki said, "That's what Miller-san's mother apparently said, trying to warn her not to play Kokkuri-san carelessly." He still didn't believe either one of those ghost stories were true. But he had the sinking feeling that what he or Kichijouji thought didn't matter.

Tadashi turned to Masaki with a smile and a faint blush. "Adults always try to impart their wisdom."

Kichijouji smiled faintly at Tadashi's blush. He could tell that the nurse had a small crush on Masaki. Tadashi was only twenty-three, so Kichijouji didn't think it was creepy. Masaki was eighteen, after all, and the age gap was only five years. _I understand, Tadashi-sensei. Masaki is irresistible._

"The problem is that some adults are idiots, so kids are always trying to figure out what is and isn't wisdom," Tadashi finished wryly.

Kichijouji chuckled.

Tadashi sighed. "Still, in this case . . . Kuchisake-onna is probably not a real spirit. But a real spirit could come in the guise of Kuchisake-onna, knowing that kids are familiar with it."

Masaki was startled. "Another spirit in the guise of Kuchisake-onna? You mean like ancient magic?" _Maybe it's terrorists after all._

"Maybe we are dealing with terrorists," Kichijouji said, immediately on the same page with Masaki. "Still, why just one girl? The Kyugawa clan isn't highly ranked."

Tadashi looked down at Hachiyama as she stirred. "I would guess a personal vendetta against the family and a magician-for-hire." He held up a hand to hush the boys. "Hello, Hachiyama-san. Would you like some water?"

Kichijouji withdrew so Tadashi could tend to his patient. When Masaki joined him, they headed back into the hallway. "We can't deny that we have a dead girl on our hands. Suicide is always a possibility, but we should check into the situation. If an ancient magic user is behind this . . ." He let his sentence trail off, knowing Masaki would understand his meaning.

Masaki nodded. "Then they could be hiding and waiting for their next opportunity to strike. Ancient magicians are known for their feuds. This situation could be far from over."

"Which may mean more dead students if we don't stop them right away," Kichijouji said. He clenched his fists. "Not at _our_ school."

"Hell, no," Masaki agreed.

* * *

 **A/N:** To the readers of "Just a Kiss," I haven't abandoned the story. I'm just busy.


	2. Hanako

**Chapter 2**

Masaki and Kichijouji didn't even make it back to class. Two hallways down, Miller burst out of the girls' bathroom with a scream. She saw them and scrambled over. "I saw it! I saw it, it's real! I saw Hanako the Toilet Ghost!"

" _What?_ " Masaki said. "Hanako's an elementary school story. What are you talking about?"

"Eyes," Miller sobbed, sinking to the floor. "I went to the bathroom to be alone, but then I heard the fourth stall shut without hearing any footsteps, and when I knocked on the door and asked who was there, and the door opened – eyes! Two glowing green eyes in nothing! There was nothing!"

By this point, Kichijouji wondered if he was in over his head. "We have to check it out," he sighed to Masaki. "Or _you_ do. And I'm not sending you into a girls' bathroom alone." He flagged down their good friend Takahashi Ayako, who was the vice president of the student council. "Takahaski, please keep any girls from entering the bathroom, okay? We need to find out what Miller-san saw."

Ayako, who was Kichijouji's height and had bleached blonde hair fashioned into careful curls, nodded. "Sure, Kichijouji."

Kichijouji nodded to Masaki, and the three of them approached the bathroom.

Ayako went in first to verify there were no girls present. Then she returned and stood at the entrance. "There's _something_ in there, and I don't really want to know what."

"Okay." Kichijouji swallowed, hoping they wouldn't get in trouble for this later, and stepped into the bathroom. It looked identical to the boys' bathroom, save for the absence of any urinals.

Masaki stomped towards the fourth stall. "I can't believe her," he muttered. "I can't think straight when I'm around her. She's just – she's worse than Akane."

He pushed the door of the fourth stall wide open.

A pair of large, mournful eyes stared at him, hanging in nothingness. The sight wasn't gruesome; it was merely a pair of glowing green eyes. With the lights on. In the middle of the morning. On a perfectly ordinary school day.

Masaki shut the door, then gathered his courage and opened it again.

The eyes were still there. Staring.

"Jouji . . ." Masaki trailed off. He didn't know what to say.

Kichijouji walked over and glanced into the stall.

Utterly sad, nearly puppy-dog eyes stared at him. If not for the fact they were attached to nothing and glowing green, Kichijouji would have felt a pang of empathy.

Instead Kichijouji got an instant headache and took a step backwards. "No. It can't be." His perfectly orderly, scientific world was leaning precariously to the side. He scrambled to keep it from falling over. "Genjutsu, maybe? It's a spell, right? That is _not_ a ghost, much less the ghost from elementary school ghost stories."

Masaki frowned and once more braced himself. "You're right. It's not a nature spirit – if it were it would be a glowing ball of light, not a pair of eyes. Not to mention we probably wouldn't be able to see it. This has to be a joke on Miller-san in revenge for Kyugawa-san." He held out his hand. Since he wasn't allowed access to his CAD on school grounds, he would have to cast Gram Demolition without it. Fortunately, he'd spent the last two and a half years practicing the spell. He let it loose, knowing he could justify the spell to the principal.

The spell exploded into blue sparkles, just the way it was supposed to: a wave of psions that would disrupt any psions they touched, breaking up the enemy spell.

When the blue sparkles faded, the eyes were still there. Staring. If anything, more dejectedly than before.

Kichijouji was losing scientific ground fast, and the sad eyes were getting to him. "I'm sorry you're so sad," he found himself saying. The scientific part of him felt like an idiot, but the other part—the part Masaki relied on to be understanding and empathetic—felt compelled to be nice.

The eyes wept tears that disappeared before they hit the floor.

Masaki was disconcerted. "Who are you? Were you a person?" He didn't believe in that, but he asked anyway.

The toilet behind the eyes gurgled. Then it flushed. Then gurgled again.

Masaki shook his head. "I don't get it. Um . . ."

The toilet paper dispenser went crazy. It spat out sheets of the thin white paper all over the floor of the stall. The spray from the toilet seeped through and left tracks.

Masaki took a sharp step back and bumped into Kichijouji.

The droplets of water soaked through the toilet paper weren't random. They formed hiragana and kanji. Before the water finished saturating the toilet paper and the words disappeared, it said: _It's me. Kyugawa_.

"Shit!" Kichijouji grabbed Masaki's arm, goosebumps racing over every inch of his skin. He had no idea what to believe, so he did the only logical thing he could think to do. "We're going to go get help, okay? Help." He rushed out of the bathroom, physically hauling Masaki behind him.

Masaki almost yelped at Kichijouji's death grip on his arm, and then he was being yanked out of the bathroom. _We're running away from a pair of eyes. The toilet paper . . . the words on the toilet paper . . . No way._

Ayako glanced at them as they rushed out. "Is it safe in there?"

"No!" Kichijouji yelled over his shoulder as he half-ran down the hall, Masaki still in tow.

Masaki wanted to let out a nervous laugh. 'No' was an understatement. He suddenly felt a rush of gratitude towards Kichijouji for getting him out of there.

"Use your authority and close that restroom!" Kichijouji called back to Ayako. Then he paused by Miller, who was still crying on the floor. "We're going to Nurse Tadashi for help. His grandmother is a Shinto priestess."

"I told you," Miller wailed. "I told you it was eyes! Just eyes."

Masaki's brain was stuck back on the toilet paper message; the disembodied, crying eyes; and his best friend from second grade, who had been the one to tell him the story of Hanako the Toilet Ghost in the first place. After hearing the story as an eight-year-old, Masaki hadn't been able to sleep that night due to one simple fact: Hanako was supposed to be a girl who committed suicide because of being bullied at school.

Kichijouji wasn't good at the whole comfort-people-and-be-a-shoulder-to-cry-on thing. He had only figured out how to comfort Masaki, and he'd done that by studying his secret love and best friend very carefully. His realm was the one of numbers and equations and theorems. "I know," he said as gently as he could manage. "We'll send the guidance counselor up to you." He gave Masaki's arm a little tug and then headed toward the stairs.

The only thing on his mind now was getting to Tadashi and getting assistance. Third High didn't have any ancient magic users or Shinto priestesses on its staff; their focus was too military for that. Outside help would be the only option, and Masaki had plenty enough authority all by himself to make that kind of request.

* * *

Forty minutes later, an elderly woman arrived at the school entrance. She was dressed traditionally in the red hakama pants and white top. Her silver hair was long and pulled back into the traditional ponytail. She used a silver cane, and as she entered the lobby where the principal, Tadashi, Kichijouji, and Masaki awaited her, Kichijouji noticed that the cane had a frog on its handle.

Everyone traded bows, and Nurse Tadashi introduced his grandmother.

"This is the priestess Tadashi Kyoko," Tadashi said.

"We've already met," the principal said, exchanging bows with Kyoko.

"Nice to meet you, ma'am," Kichijouji said, bowing. "I'm Kichijouji Shinkuro."

"Ichijou Masaki," Masaki said, bowing as well.

Kyoko inclined her head. "The spirit is in the bathroom, correct?"

"Correct." Kichijouji had gotten away with not being sent back to class only because Masaki had insisted on having Kichijouji's help. Kichijouji wasn't on either the Student Council or the Disciplinary Committee, but rather was the president of the Science Club. "A girl named Miller Asami found it."

"Take me there, please," Kyoko said.

"I'll leave you in your grandson's capable hands," the principal said, bowing herself out and heading toward her office.

Kichijouji and Masaki turned and led Kyoko toward the elevator. "It was shocking enough to find disembodied eyes. But then the spirit gave us the message that claims she's Kyugawa-san."

Tadashi accompanied the group. "We've never had any spirit activity in the school before."

Kyoko nodded. "There was a special cleansing ceremony done when the school was opened. I was, in fact, one of the priestesses who participated in it. But such cleansings have to be done regularly to keep a space free of spirits."

They fell quiet until they arrived at the bathroom, where one of the female teachers was standing guard.

"I was sent for," Kyoko told the teacher. She smiled faintly. "Do not worry about me. I am a priestess in the Shinto tradition. I am used to dealing with spirits."

The female teacher hastily bowed and stepped aside. "Thank you for coming."

Kyoko entered the bathroom.

Feeling compelled – responsible, even – Masaki followed.

Kichijouji followed as well, sticking close to Masaki's side. He felt too sorry for the spirit to just stay out in the hallway.

Tadashi entered last and stood behind Kichijouji and Masaki.

"I sense her," Kyoko said. "She is a girl. A lost child." She cocked her head. "With a message to send." She approached the fourth stall without fear. Instead of opening it, she rapped on the door with the head of her cane. "Spirit of the girl. Come out. Show your true form."

A see-through form leaked through the door into the main part of the bathroom. She solidified into a seemingly solid body. It was Kyugawa. Tear after tear dripped down her cheeks.

"Speak," Kyoko commanded. "Tell us what you have come here to say. Tell us what we need to do to set you at rest."

Kyugawa spoke, and she sounded like a living person. "I woke up in the toilet. I didn't know I was at school. I remember thinking . . . I wanted to warn everyone."

"What is your warning?" Kyoko prompted.

"Kuchisake-onna . . . she's real. And she doesn't respond the way she does in the stories." Terrible red lacerations suddenly appeared on either side of Kyugawa's mouth. "She did this to me. I said she was beautiful, and she still did this to me." With every word, blood gushed from the wounds. "Then she stabbed me with scissors." Red bloomed on the front of Kyugawa's school uniform.

Kichijouji turned away. Since Nurse Tadashi wouldn't judge him, and he knew it, he unabashedly pressed himself against Masaki's side. In any other situation, the move would have been far too bold. But this situation was horrifying. It wasn't the gore that made Kichijouji turn away—he'd already worked hard in therapy to reduce his PTSD reactions to blood—but rather Kyugawa's helpless weeping. She was dead, and yet she was still in pain. The mere idea of it made Kichijouji feel ill.

Behind Kichijouji, Tadashi had his hands pressed to his mouth, apparently equally affected.

Masaki ran an arm around Kichijouji without fully realizing he had done it, or that he'd done it in front of other people. The reaction was automatic. "Kyugawa-san . . . I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"Kokkuri-san. Kokkuri-san brought the spirits out. To punish us." Kyugawa suddenly slid back into the bathroom stall as if yanked on a wire, right through the door as if it weren't there.

Masaki started forward and pushed the door open. He recoiled. The bathroom stall was empty.

"She is gone now," Kyoko said. "She has gone to heaven where she belongs. She only stayed long enough to give us the message." She turned to face the teenagers and her grandson, her eyes seeming very old. "We are lucky that Kyugawa-san had such fortitude. Without her warning, we would not stand a chance."

Kichijouji returned to Masaki's side, hovering there. "You're saying Kokkuri-san is real? And that he, she, or it has unleashed multiple spirits upon the school?" He was so far out of his normal sphere of study, much less belief, that he hardly knew what to think.

Kyoko inclined her head. "Kokkuri-san, as children call it, is a trickster spirit, easily offended and enraged. Think of its name: _Kok_ , as in kitsune. _Ku_ , as in inu. And _ri_ , as in tanuki. It is a genderless bakemono with similarities to the fox demon, dog demon, and raccoon dog demon. Yet it is none of those and plays by its own rules. Once offended, the kokkuri commits outrageous acts of violence, usually by calling upon its stronger allies. Yes, Kichijouji-kun, the kokkuri is real, and if one manages to get its attention with that silly game, and somehow makes the creature angry, terrible things happen."

Kichijouji frowned and nodded. He knew little about ancient magic and spirits, so he had to trust the priestess to know her business. "Will you tell Kyugawa-san's family the truth, then? If they're going to grieve—and they are—then they should at least know the truth."

Kyoko nodded. "Communicating with the family of the deceased is one of my duties."

"What do we do?" Masaki asked. "Ghosts? Are going to follow around whoever participated in the spirit game? What's going to happen?"

"We will deal with this matter one step at a time." Kyoko brought forth several charms made of twine and beads. "Ichijou-dono, please distribute these among the remaining players of the game. There is also charm for you, and one for Kichijouji-kun."

Masaki handed Kichijouji one of the charms. It was in a loop like a bracelet. "Then Miller-san and the other girls are in danger."

Kyoko inclined her head. "I believe it would be wise next for me to speak with Miller-san."

"I'll have her pulled out of class," Tadashi said. He yanked his phone from the pocket of his white lab coat and typed in a quick message.

Kichijouji slipped on the bracelet, glad to have some form of magical protection, especially since modern magic didn't work on ghosts. In order to defeat phantoms, a modern caster had to stop or kill the ancient magician who was doing the summoning. In this case, there was no human casting spells. "Thank you for the bracelet."

"I do not want any more dead children," Kyoko said.

Masaki frowned and pulled on one of the bracelets himself.

* * *

They convened in one of the rooms for extracurricular activities, since the rooms were only used after school was over for the day. Miller sat at the table with a box of tissues, sullenly blowing her nose and throwing the used tissues in the wastepaper basket. Everyone else had also gathered around and taken a seat.

"I need to know every detail of what you said to Kokkuri-san, and what it said back," Kyoko said.

Kichijouji was admittedly sorry to be missing his current class, Magic Science III, but at the same time, he felt it was important to remain partnered with Masaki through to the end of this ordeal. It made him glad that Masaki was a scion and could use his authority to keep Kichijouji out of class and at his side. Kichijouji actually despised it when Masaki insisted he stay behind during a mission.

Tadashi, who was sitting to Kichijouji's left while Masaki sat to his right, supplied Miller with some aspirin for the headache she'd gotten from crying so much. "Here," he said gently, pushing a little white cup and a bottle of water Miller's way.

Miller took the aspirin silently.

"Miller-san." Kyoko's voice was gentle and stern at the same time.

"I can't remember, okay?" Miller said. She scowled down at the table. "It was just a game. We were messing around."

"Do you at least remember when Kokkuri-san became angry?" Kyoko asked.

Miller wiped her nose on a new tissue. "Not really. I mean . . ."

"Yes?" Kyoko prompted.

"Things started to get weird after Kyugawa-chan and I got into an argument," Miller said.

"What was the argument?" Kyoko asked.

Miller sighed. "She was being a baby. She said Kokkuri-san was real and we should stop. I said Kokkuri-san was fake and we could keep going. Then I asked Kokkuri-san to tell me when Kyugawa-chan would – when Kyugawa-chan would – " She looked away guiltily. " – would die. It said 'tonight.' Kyugawa-chan freaked out and started screaming at me. I laughed. I told her that Kokkuri-san had to be fake, because everyone knew she wasn't going to die that night, and get a grip. Everyone else agreed with me. Then Kyugawa-chan said even if we were right asking when she would die was a mean thing to do, and she stormed off the roof."

Tadashi chewed on his lip but didn't say anything.

Kichijouji frowned. _Kokkuri-san told you the truth. But like me, you assumed it was all impossible, and now Kyugawa-san is dead._

Kyoko didn't raise her voice, but her expression reflected disapproval. "You made everyone vow Kokkuri-san was fake when Kokkuri-san was still present?"

Miller flushed and looked at Kyoko with a wounded grimace. "I thought I was telling the truth!"

Kyoko shook her head. "Never mock the spirits to their faces. Many, like Kokkuri-san, are volatile enough to strike out."

"How was I supposed to know?" Miller wailed. "I just moved to Japan this year. America isn't like this!"

"It's true," Kichijouji said, needing to defend Miller somehow—perhaps especially since he would have also insisted Kokkuri-san wasn't real. "Miller-san was born here, but her parents moved when she was only a year old. And she just moved back. There wasn't any reason for her to assume our local spirits were real. Only a very small percentage of Americans think their local spirits are real, after all." He sighed. "And not even all Japanese citizens think theirs are real. I didn't until today. I'm a magic scientist. I've spent most of my life focusing on math and science, even when I was little."

Kyoko's demeanor softened. "I forget there are families who have not upheld their traditions. I grew up in a strict Shinto household, taught the religion by my mother and father. My mother was a priestess herself."

Miller wiped her teary eyes on another tissue. "My mom is a cook, and my dad is a scientist."

"We'll keep anything more from happening," Masaki vowed. He looked to Kyoko. "All we need is your help."

Kyoko shook her head. "You will need far more than that."

Tadashi cringed and scratched his temple, having apparently expected his grandmother to say that.

"Far more than that?" Kichijouji echoed, not liking the sound of this. "Like what?"

"Luck," Kyoko said. "And you'd better start praying."

* * *

It was decided over the course of the school day that no one ought to try going home alone, even if their house was a block from Third High, like Hachiyama Utau's. Utau got her twin brothers to come walk her home. Both were highly ranked magicians, newly graduated from college. They'd just come back from basic training for the NDO. Miller's mother drove the family car to school and picked Miller up. That left Nanabou Rie. She was an only child and both her parents were at work.

Masaki instantly stepped up, offering to see her home. That meant Kichijouji was coming along, too, because he wasn't going to let Masaki out of his sight until this was over.

All three of them boarded the local train. By foot, Rie lived an hour away, but by train, her commute was only twenty minutes.

Kichijouji and Masaki let Rie have the only remaining seat, and they stood, holding the hand grips. The scenery flashed by outside, the train being incredibly fast between its many stops.

Every minute or so, Kichijouji would scan the boxcar they were in, making sure nothing unusual was happening. Everyone was sitting or standing quietly, their noses stuck in their phones or tablets. Two different couples were whispering to each other. Otherwise, there was only the roar of the train.

Masaki found himself wishing Shiba Tatsuya would show up. As annoying as the First High engineering prodigy was, Tatsuya had an unerring instinct for uncovering twisted plots. _If Tatsuya were here, he would somehow mysteriously figure out in five minutes tops what Kokkuri-san was planning._

But they would have to settle for Kyoko's charms around their wrists. According to the elderly Shinto priestess, the beads of the charm would turn ice cold against their skin in the presence of an unfriendly spirit and would also grant them a small measure of protection.

They made it to Rie's stop without any of their bracelets reacting. Rie leapt up and scurried off the train as soon as it came to a stop, forcing Masaki and Kichijouji to run to keep up with her. Rie's haste was well founded, however, as the train only waited a minute more before taking off. That was how tight the commuter train schedules ran.

She paused on the train platform and panted. "I'm exhausted. I just want to go home, eat some of Mama's miso soup, and crawl into bed. I'll pull the covers over my head and just stay there. I'll call out sick until this whole batshit crazy spirit feud is over. They should be going after Miller-chan, not us. We didn't do anything."

Kichijouji blinked at the cussing. Since they weren't on school property, Rie could say what she wanted now, but for most of Kichijouji's life, people had been so conservative that they'd told girls they weren't allowed to cuss. As a result, Kichijouji was still trying to acclimate to the fact real girls still did cuss. "Miller-san didn't do anything either, as it turns out. As someone who grew up in the USNA, it never occurred to her that anyone would believe these spirits are real, much less that they would turn out to be real. I feel bad for all of you."

Rie scowled. "Miller-chan still – "

All of their bracelets flashed cold.

Rie yelped and rubbed her wrist. "Agh. It's like ice cubes."

Masaki looked around in all directions for the danger. He only noticed then that they were the only people who'd gotten off at Rie's stop. "Shit!" he hissed. "We're alone."

Rie snapped, "Obviously not alone enough!"

Kichijouji, like Masaki, looked around in all directions, turning in a circle as he did. "Dammit, Masaki, we're going to need ancient magick users for bodyguards!" But that didn't solve the danger of the present moment. "I don't see anything! Where is it?"

"Children," a woman's voice said.

Masaki whirled around.

A fair-skinned woman with long, black hair stood behind the four foot wall separating the platform from the courtyard of the train station's waiting area. She gripped the top of the wall, peering over it anxiously. "What's happening?"

Masaki hastily bowed, feeling terrible. "I'm sorry, ma'am. We didn't think anyone was here." _She must have been sitting down reading the newspaper or checking her messages until she heard us yelling_.

Kichijouji had no idea if the woman would think they were insane, but he took the plunge. "There's a spirit nearby," he said. "We're from Third High—the magic school. We can sense it." He paused. "We're all in danger here."

The woman's eyes widened. "Oh, my." She stayed standing, but she looked around uncertainly. "A spirit? My grandmother always said spirits look like real people."

Masaki's insides sloshed uneasily. "Sometimes. I guess."

"But if that's so, how will we know the spirit when we see it?" the woman asked.

The question made the hairs on Masaki's arms stand on end.

The color drained from Rie's face. "That's it. I'm calling my mom. I don't care that she's still at work. She's coming over and picking us up, or else. It was too much to ask for her to drive all the way to school, but now that we've come this far, she can just explain to her boss that her daughter's about to be murdered by an evil spirit and go press the pedal to the metal. Oh my god, this sucks. If Miller-chan doesn't get killed by a ghost, I'll do it myself." She pulled out her cell phone.

Kichijouji was vaguely impressed by Rie's fighting spirit. "I hope your mom isn't too far away." The beads were still cold against his wrist. _Although I don't know that your mom's presence will do anything to help us. Kyugawa-san died at home with her entire family in the house._

Kichijouji felt himself freeze up on the side. His gaze slid toward the woman. _Spirits often look like normal humans? Then there's no reason why the spirit can't be you._ "Masaki . . ." He reached up and squeezed Masaki's arm in wordless warning.

Masaki looked at Kichijouji, startled.

"Ah, your mother is still at work?" the woman said sympathetically. "I live around here, too. I can drive you home." She looked away, in the direction of the parking lot on the other side of the station. "My car is parked right over there."

Rie paused, her finger hovering over the speed dial on her touch screen. "Really?" She hesitated a moment, then tucked her phone away in her purse again. "My mom would be really mad to get called at work. Are you sure you don't mind?"

The woman smiled. "Not at all. Come, children. My car is big enough for four."

Rie breathed a sigh of relief. "This day might end normally after all. Thank you, Obasan."

There was an opening in the partition wall so that people waiting in the courtyard could catch their train quickly. Rie walked through it. Then she stumbled back and screamed, landing on her ass.

The woman frowned. "You don't have to be so impolite." She dropped down out of view.

Masaki vaulted over the wall and saw the woman was on the ground on her hands. Her body ended in torn clothing and a chunk of backbone. He whipped out his CAD. "Nanabou-san! Run!"

Kichijouji had rushed to the wall as well, although he didn't jump over it. When he saw there was only half a woman, he shrieked, the sight far too unnatural. His entire body coiled back with revulsion, and then his training took over, wiping out all further thoughts. He snapped out his hand and fired Invisible Bullet, not waiting for either Rie or Masaki to act.

The half-woman flew back and crashed into a café table, knocking it over. She pulled herself up with a groan. "Nasty boy. So disrespectful." With a gesture, a scythe appeared in her hands. "I didn't even have time to ask you where you think my legs are."

Rie scrambled to her feet. "Oh, hell no!" She drew a cylindrical metal stick about four inches long out of her school bag and flicked her wrist. It turned into a glowing blue staff. She blocked the spirit's scythe attack just in time. "Shove off, you crazy bitch!"

Masaki realized to his horror that he stood frozen, and his lips were numb. The sight of the half-woman raising her scythe again snapped him into action. He squeezed the trigger of his pistol. "Die!" _Again._

A screech rent the air. The half-woman fell to the ground, boils erupting all over her body. They grew into enormous bubbles under her skin, like the bubbles in a pizza crust. Then she exploded into a bloody mess, pulps of flesh spattering over the courtyard.

Rie dropped her staff CAD. It clattered to the pavestones and turned itself off. "I think I'm going to be sick."

Even Kichijouji was queasy, and by this point, he'd seen Masaki use Rupture dozens upon dozens of times. "It's not human. It might reconstitute itself. We need to get the hell out of here while we still can."

As Kichijouji spoke, Rie collapsed to her knees and vomited.

Masaki grabbed Rie's hand, hauled her up, and then took Kichijouji by the arm. Rie barely had time to snatch her CAD off the pavestones. Masaki took off running and ignited a speed spell upon himself and his companions. "Where's your house?" he yelled.

"Keep going until I tell you to turn left," Rie said shakily.

Kichijouji punched in his own speed spell, thereby taking some of the strain off of Masaki. He kept a close eye on Rie, not wanting her to trip and fall.

The street cameras would "catch" them doing unauthorized magic in public, but again, Masaki's status as a scion had them covered. Kichijouji felt profoundly grateful for his best friend's clout. _As if we'd just stand there and let ourselves get killed even if Masaki was a commoner like us!_

Rie belatedly activated her own speed spell. "Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god."

Masaki's entire body felt numb by now. _I 'killed' a ghost. But it'll no doubt be back_.


	3. Kashima Reiko

**Chapter 3**

Masaki, Kichijouji, and Rie made it back to her house. The first thing they did was lock all the doors and windows and cast reinforcement spells on them so that the doors and windows would stand up to a beating without breaking.

Then Rie said, "I've got to go to the bathroom before I piss myself," and ran for the half-bath off the kitchen.

"Blunt girl," Kichijouji commented. He wasn't offended. Just surprised. But he knew plenty of guys longing for "the girl next door" would have been horrified out of their skulls. He supposed it was just as well that he was more interested in boys than girls. He didn't have as much riding on it.

Kichijouji pushed aside the thoughts and scanned the living room and kitchen, making sure they hadn't missed anything.

The main house phone, which had a screen inset over the kitchen counter, rang. The screen lit up green, displaying just the caller ID and not the caller's picture. Above the phone number, the name came up as Kashima Reiko.

Kichijouji and Masaki heard the toilet flushing in the background.

"You're getting a call from a Kashima Reiko," Kichijouji called, hoping Rie could hear him. He also hoped that meant some kind of help. He turned to Masaki. "You better call your dad. Or, at the very least, your mom. Either one of them could send us help, after all. And maybe they'll know about something we could do to help reinforce our barriers or defeat that creature if it returns."

Rie ran out of the bathroom and punched the video phone's screen, selecting the green call button with her thumb. "Hashima Reiko? Shit, she's in my study group." Since the video feed didn't come up, she punched the speaker phone button. "Hashima-chan, I'm not able to study tonight. Or, like, ever, until this ghost thing is over. Miller-san is lame, right? I can't believe she got me into this."

"Oh, my," the voice of the monstrous half-woman said, sounding amused. "Do you think this 'ghost thing' can ever be over?"

Rie screamed and shut the phone off. The wall screen flickered black.

"It actually said 'Kashima' instead of 'Hashima,'" Kichijouji said. He cringed. "And dammit, I didn't want to be right, but that thing really did reconstitute!" He peered back at Masaki, who was being unusually silent. "Masaki? Parents? Call?"

Masaki held up his phone. "It's been vibrating."

Rie took a good look and clapped her hands to her mouth. She took a step back. "Oh, gross."

Masaki's phone was awash with text messages and graphic images of train accidents. The text messages all said the same thing: _Where are my legs?_ "My phone's being attacked so constantly I can't call out."

"I'm glad I'm apparently less interesting, then," Kichijouji said. He pulled out his phone and hit the speed dial for Masaki's mom. _Kashima Reiko,_ he thought as the phone rang _. 'Where are my legs?' I recognize this story now. The classic train ghost story—the woman whose legs were cut off by a train._ He shuddered. He'd tried to forget that story on purpose; it had always horrified him.

"Moshi moshi," Masaki's mom answered politely. Then her voice warmed. "Shinkuro! How are you? It's been too long."

Masaki had listened to his mother's voice over a phone enough in his life to catch the gist of what she said, even though she wasn't on speaker phone. "Jouji just spent the weekend at our house last week," he whispered to Rie.

"Is that Masaki?" she asked.

Kichijouji had a bad feeling about this phone call. "Okaasama . . ." He never called Masaki's mom 'mother,' although she had told him he could. The most he'd ever done was call her 'Midori-kaasan.' "Please tell us about Kashima Reiko. She was badly hurt by a train, wasn't she?"

"Kashima Reiko isn't her real name, of course," the voice on the other end of the phone said. "That's just an abbreviation of Death Mask Demon. They say her face froze in agony as she died on the train tracks of the Meishin Railway. Although some stories state she was a schoolgirl, in reality she was a young mother, tired from her day at the office. She chased her little daughter over the train tracks, terrified for her daughter's safety, and was hit by the train herself."

"I never heard that version," Masaki said uneasily. His mother was hardly into ghost stories, yet she had recounted that horrifying tale without stopping to look it up.

Although the beaded bracelet on his wrist wasn't cold, Kichijouji's hand still felt like ice where he held the phone. He scrambled to remember the details of the story he'd once tried to forget. _Her legs. It's about her legs somehow._ "She was very brave," he said, trying to buy time to remember. "And she saved her daughter. But she's still not at rest."

"No," the voice that sounded like Masaki's mother agreed. "Not until she can find her legs."

Masaki wanted to smack the phone out of Kichijouji's hand. _That's not my mom!_

"We'll find her legs," Kichijouji said, and then he hung up. He immediately shoved the phone into his pocket. "Okay. We can't call for outside help, but now we know what she's after. I remember there was something about this in the ghost story about her! One of my friends told me during summer break when we were eleven. I just have to remember it now."

Rie shook her head. "The only version I heard of is that you're supposed to say Reiko's legs are on the Meishin Railway. But remember what Kyugawa-chan said? The real ghosts don't act like they do in stories."

"Kyoko-sensei," Masaki murmured. "We have to talk to Kyoko-sensei somehow."

Rie shook her head harder. "We're on our own! We just have to think. Think!"

A scratching sound came at the front door. "Rude little children," the voice of the Kashima Reiko called from outside. "You run so fast with those pretty legs of yours. You left this poor woman behind."

"It's not our fault you ran in front of a train!" Rie yelled.

"Don't piss her off!" Kichijouji hissed. "And I'm going to try that, anyway." He turned toward the door. "Your legs are on the Meishin Railway!"

"I've looked," Reiko responded. "I've looked and looked."

Something clicked in Masaki's head. He ran to the laptop sitting on a low study table in Rie's living room and woke it out of sleep mode. Then he browsed the internet rapidly. Cold sweat collected on Masaki's forehead. He typed in search term after search term, chasing down each lead. Then he leapt to his feet. "Matsunami Cemetery! Watanabe Reiko, your legs were buried without you in Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture. It wasn't your legs that were lost—it was the rest of you. And they chose to bury what they had. Go to Matsunami Cemetery. It's true!"

Kichijouji wasn't surprised by Masaki's ingenuity—Masaki was quite intelligent—but he was surprised to hear what the answer was. "Good job," he whispered, and he hoped Reiko would accept the truth.

After a moment of tense silence, they heard sobbing. "My legs . . . Everyone always said they were my best feature. Nishinomiya . . . Nishinomiya . . . it's so beautiful there this time of year." Scratching, scraping noises followed and faded away.

Rie shivered and rubbed her arms fiercely.

Masaki collapsed on Rie's sofa. "I can't believe I did it."

Kichijouji glanced out the window. Reiko was dragging her half-body across the grassy lawn, walking on her hands. When she reached the edge of the property, she vanished. "And you really did do it. She vanished. I guess she went to Nishinomiya. Maybe once she sees her own grave, she'll cross over." He sighed and stumbled over to the couch, dropping down on the cushion beside Masaki. "Thank gods that's over." _Just how many ghosts do we have to deal with before this is finished?_ "Masaki, I'm spending the night at your house tonight."

Masaki wrapped an arm around Kichijouji and leaned against his friend. "We could've all been killed. I'm not becoming a Buddhist monk any time soon."

Rie laughed. "Are you kidding? I want Kyoko-sensei to teach me how to be a Shinto priestess. That was badass." She sobered. "And you totally found her legs. Good job, Ichijou-kun."

"Yes," Kichijouji said, reiterated his earlier compliment. "Good job." He leaned against Masaki's side as well. He knew there was no way he'd sleep that night unless he was at the Ichijou mansion, surrounded by wildly talented magicians, a horde of body guards, and a massive security system.

Masaki shook his head. He tightened his embrace around Kichijouji. "I'm just glad we're all alive."

* * *

Once Rie's mother got home, Masaki and Kichijouji went back to Masaki's house. Masaki was glad to see his real mom, who was very concerned about the whole situation. She even gave Kichijouji a hug and a kiss on the forehead in front of everyone. They ate dinner, and with the usual boisterousness of his little sisters surrounding him, Masaki felt almost normal.

Then darkness settled and the house turned quiet as everyone went to bed, Mrs. Ichijou tucking in Ruri. Masaki ended up leaning against the bathroom door lintel, shivering in his pajamas and watching Kichijouji as Kichijouji brushed his teeth.

"Can we stay in the same room tonight?" Masaki asked as he finally had to face trying to sleep. "I know Mom already made up your bed and everything, but I feel kind of . . ." He rubbed his arm self-consciously. "It's been a long day." He couldn't believe that when he'd woken up this morning, he'd thought everything was fine, no one was dead, and evil spirits weren't on the loose.

Kichijouji spat out his toothpaste. "Absolutely. I don't care how many bodyguards your parents have lined up outside and in the house." There were fifteen total. "I won't be able to let my guard down enough to go to sleep if I'm in a room all by myself." He resumed brushing. The Ichijou mansion was so fancy that every two bedrooms had a shared bathroom between them. Of course, Mrs. Ichijou had given Kichijouji the bedroom that shared Masaki's bathroom. It meant that Masaki would be close by all night, but that still wasn't the same as the security of having someone in the same room.

Masaki nodded. "Same here. I can't . . . I just . . . When we were at the train station, and I froze, and you had to – " He bowed his head. "I'm sorry. If I'd pulled myself together faster, we wouldn't have been in so much danger."

Kichijouji spat out his toothpaste again. "You don't have to apologize! We had no idea she wasn't human. She looked human. She sounded human. It's not like the bodiless, glowing eyes we saw earlier." He rinsed out his mouth. "You're being too hard on yourself. As usual." He rinsed the toothbrush as well. "Besides, you couldn't actually kill her. All you could do was slow her down, and you did that."

Masaki smiled weakly. "And look up her legs for her." He sighed. "Okay, enough of this. I want us to get in bed and forget any of this ever happened."

Kichijouji nearly dropped the toothbrush. _Get in bed? As in, with me?_ He had assumed one of them would be sleeping on the floor—probably Masaki, since Kichijouji was the guest. He hadn't imagined for an instant that they would share the bed. Masaki had a standard-sized bed—all the bedrooms had one—instead of a twin-sized one, but Kichijouji had still assumed that since they were boys, no sharing would be allowed. "R-really? You don't mind sharing a bed?" He tried to think about it logically. "I-I mean, I guess I don't take up much space . . ."

Masaki laughed. "You take up all the space in the world." He wrapped his arms around Kichijouji and hugged him tightly. "There's only room for one of you, and that's right next to me." Usually, his secret feelings towards Kichijouji made him too nervous to act, afraid he would give himself away. But when Kichijouji said something so adorable and blissfully unaware, and after such a hard day . . . _Oh, god. Don't die, Jouji_. "If anything happens to you, it'll leave a gaping hole. I promise. You take up a lot of space in my life."

For a moment, Kichijouji thought he might faint. _A hug!_ He felt a raging blush hit his cheeks, and briefly, he was too stunned to react. Then he slipped his arms around Masaki's waist and tried to remember to breathe. _It almost makes this day worth it to have you hug me at the end. Almost._ "Masaki . . ." He paused, hearing how breathless he sounded. "I—ah, yes. I plan to always be right next to you, at your side."

Masaki held onto him. "I know. But having the plan is not enough. We have to live in order to make that plan a reality." He took a deep breath, somewhat steadied by Kichijouji's decision to hug him back. "We have to survive this. We've just got to."

Kichijouji felt his resolve harden. He gazed up at Masaki, although his face still felt hot. "We will! We've survived other insanely dangerous things, and we're going to survive this, too. We'll go to the university, and we'll go into the NDO. We'll serve, retire, probably have a second career, get old and cranky, and then end up as those old guys who say the water in the hot springs is still not hot enough." He smiled at that image.

Masaki grinned. "But we'll be there all the time because we'll complain regular baths don't have the minerals that make us feel better." He squeezed Kichijouji and then released his friend they could climb into bed.

Then Masaki found himself hyperaware of the heat of Jouji's body beside him in the bed. They were both on their backs, and Masaki stared at the ceiling. "Do you ever wonder sometimes . . ." He wondered if he should broach this topic or not, but this day had forced him to reconsider his silence. ". . . what was the world like before World War III? Do you ever wonder? It's one thing to read history books, but was it really so bad? Was it so bad to not think being gay was a big deal? Or bad that many more women stayed single or didn't want kids?"

Kichijouji was struck completely mute by the choice of topic. For the first time, Kichijouji suspected they were secretly on the same page. He was so shocked that he couldn't really think at all for several moments. When he could think, he remembered all the times Akane had accused them of being gay together and how they'd both quickly insisted they weren't. Then, finally, he found his voice. "I read up on it." His voice came out as a whisper, and he stared at the ceiling as well, too nervous to look at Masaki. The blush in his face seemed to expand through his entire body. "All sorts of people had more rights back then. Especially gays, lesbians, and women. I mean, we went so far backwards that we started pretending again that transsexuals don't even exist. But the idea that giving humans equal rights led to moral decay is patently false. The people with the most power—the cisgender, straight men—just didn't want to share their power and privilege. And, of course, the cisgender, straight women also felt threatened." He paused. "When we started taking away people's rights again, the cisgender, straight women didn't think they'd end up relegated to long dresses, nearly compulsory marriage, and homemaking. But our grandparents really turned back the clock roughly an entire century."

Silence hung over them for a moment, and then Kichijouji pushed forward, knowing where this conversation had to be headed. "I don't think it's evil or deviant to be gay, Masaki. Or bisexual, either."

Masaki reached out, found Masaki's hand, and squeezed it. "I don't, either," he whispered. "I can't. I can't think that it means I'm bad. I try so hard to be the model son, the model student, the model citizen. I'm tired of trying to be good. If I'm going to die, or almost die, over and over again, and that's what's expected of me, I want something in return. I want to be happy."

Kichijouji squeezed Masaki's hand and then dared to roll onto his side and face him. "Your sister's been teasing us for years. But in me, at least, she's seeing the truth. I'm in love with you." He never imagined he would get to say those words. "If I can make you happy, then I will."

Hearing those words, Masaki could no longer hold back. _Happy? You'll make me ecstatic_. He pulled Kichijouji into his arms and hugged him, unable to respond in words and terrified this opportunity would never come again. When Kichijouji pressed up against his side and hugged him back, Masaki felt his remaining restraint break loose. He cupped Kichijouji's cheek with one hand and pressed his lips to Kichijouji's again and again. Instinct took over, and he shifted angles, mouthing.

Kichijouji hung onto Masaki with desperate strength. At first, all he could do was accept the kisses. Then, after a few moments of Masaki mouthing his lips, he managed to kiss back. He was breathless with a wash of surprise, joy, and budding arousal. _Masaki!_ _I've loved you for five years now, and I've wanted to be with you so much . . . Oh, god._

Masaki moaned softly and ran his hand through Kichijouji's hair. It was still damp from his shower. Kichijouji kissing him back was the most bliss he'd ever felt in his life. He was sorry when he ran out of breath and couldn't figure out how to get enough air and keep kissing at the same time. "I _am_ happy," he whispered. His body thought this was wonderful; he was half-hard.

"I am, now, too." Kichijouji, being embarrassed that he was fully hard, had shifted his hips so Masaki wouldn't be able to feel it. He smiled at Masaki, basking in the loving look aimed his way. "Oh, Masaki . . . I didn't think this was actually possible. I was prepared to silently love you all my life without ever giving you a hint. I had no idea—not even the slightest clue—that you felt the same way." He sighed with contentment. "It means everything to me that you do."

Masaki blushed. The look on Kichijouji's face was everything he'd imagined and more. "Um – well – we'll have to hide this from people, you know. That's not ideal. I'd rather be open about it, but we can't."

"I know." Kichijouji frowned. "Most everyone is bigoted all over again. We'd be attacked—verbally, physically, socially, and politically. Your clan, too. We don't dare let anyone know, even your mom. But if I get to be with you, I don't care. Who I love is no one's business."

Masaki held Kichijouji closely at that, cupping the back of Kichijouji's head. He closed his eyes, soaking up the feeling of finally being with Kichijouji the way he wanted to be. "Love…I love you too," he whispered. "I don't think I can ever love anyone as much as I love you." He stroked Kichijouji's hair. "Shiba Miyuki is beautiful and talented. But that didn't go anywhere, and at this point, I know it's not going to." He shuddered. "And if I'd married her, Shiba Tatsuya would have become my brother-in-law. Now that would have been _awkward_."

Kichijouji laughed and snuggled up to Masaki. "True. And you can't just marry her. You end up marrying the whole family. Having Shiba Tatsuya as a brother-in-law is scary enough. But being married into the Yotsuba Clan? And having Yotsuba Maya as your aunt-in-law? I think I'd rather face the Woman with No Legs again. At least she turned out to be reasonable in the end."

Masaki laughed. "Too true. I can't just send Yotsuba Maya to the cemetery. In the way I'd want to, it would be illegal."

Kichijouji chuckled. "Indeed." He laid his head on Masaki's shoulder and relaxed, which he hadn't thought would be possible given the day they'd had. "We'll face whatever comes next together. Whatever it is, we'll handle it." _I just hope none of our female classmates die tonight. I don't even want to think about it!_


End file.
